Le grand saut

Ah, laisser tomber sa “job de jour” et faire de son talent et sa véritable passion son unique gagne-pain. Un rêve pour bien du monde, non? C’est toujours fascinant de voir comment ça se passe quand ça se concrétise. Janick, qui fait de très beau bijoux qu’elle vend sur Neawear, vient de faire le passage vers la création à temps plein. Etsy, le site de vente d’objets faits-main, a mené une entrevue avec elle pour voir comment la transition s’effectue. Inspirant!

Et si Geneviève de Chroniques Blondes n’a pas laissé tomber les contrats d’écriture qui forment son gagne-pain, elle a tout de même investi argent, temps et sueur (et folie! et bonheur!) dans la création de sa fiction Web, Chez Jules. Après une diffusion sur le mode estival, Chez Jules reprend ses activités en force en nous parlant de rentrée et d’exfoliation par le jeune amant mal rasé. Quoi? Vous n’êtes pas encore allés y faire un tour? Allez! Allez! Cliquez!

En passant, Chez Jules cherche un pompier pour figuration… habillée. Si vous en connaissez un, envoyez-le ici.

Fondant, croquant, craquant

Les filles, quand vous avez une rage de biscuits Whippet, vous savez maintenant pourquoi.

Fait chaud ici, non?

Via Embruns sur Twitter. (qui d’autre?)

Ces auteurs qui cherchent trop

Écrire, même de la fiction, implique parfois beaucoup de recherche.

Énormément de recherche.

Recherche jusqu’au point où on n’arrive plus à écrire parce qu’on croit qu’on n’a pas encore terminé la recherche.

Vous êtes comme moi? Vous apprécierez alors le nouveau blogue de Lisa Gold, professionnelle de recherche. En plus d’enseigner l’art de bien chercher des informations (y’a pas juste le Web!) et d’identifier des sources fiables, Lisa travaille conjointement avec des écrivains qui ont des besoin spécifiques pour la rédaction de leurs ouvrages.

J’ai particulièrement apprécié ses conseils d’aujourd’hui concernant les auteurs qui en font un peu trop.

-Don’t become obsessed with details that aren’t important to anyone but you, but take the time to confirm the accuracy of information you do use so you can avoid obvious bloopers and preventable errors.

-Know when to stop. Don’t let research interfere with your writing.

Euh… ça commence quand, la thérapie?

Stories that make us angry in a whole new way

Great article in the New York Times about Jon Stewart’s Daily Show and its writing process:

The writers work throughout the morning on deadline pieces spawned by breaking news, as well as longer-term projects, trying to find, as Josh Lieb, a co-executive producer of the show, put it, stories that “make us angry in a whole new way.” By lunchtime, Mr. Stewart (who functions as the show’s managing editor and says he thinks of hosting as almost an afterthought) has begun reviewing headline jokes. By 3 p.m. a script is in; at 4:15, Mr. Stewart and the crew rehearse that script, along with assembled graphics, sound bites and montages. There is an hour or so for rewrites — which can be intense, newspaper-deadlinelike affairs — before a 6 o’clock taping with a live studio audience. […]

Mr. Stewart has said he is looking forward to the end of the Bush administration “as a comedian, as a person, as a citizen, as a mammal.”

Manga

J’ai suivi la vague et j’ai créé mon manga moi aussi, via Face your manga.

Je trouve qu’elle a trop un look “lectrice de nouvelles”, mais c’est ce que j’ai réussi à faire de plus ressemblant.

I like giants, especially girl giants

Sometimes your iPod set on shuffle gives you exactly the song you need at the time you need it.
It happened to me today.

I like giants
Kimya Dawson
There’s a video performance of the song here.

when i go for a drive i like to pull off to the side
of the road, turn out the lights, get out, and look up at the sky
and i do this to remind me that i’m really really tiny
in the grand scheme of things and sometimes this terrifies me
but it’s only really scary ’cause it makes me feel serene
in a way i never thought i’d be because i’ve never been
so grounded and so humbled and so one with everything
i am grounded, i am humbled, i am one with everything

rock and roll is fun but if you ever hear someone
say you are huge look at the moon, look at the stars, look at the sun
look at the ocean and the desert and the mountains and the sky
say i am just a speck of dust inside a giant’s eye
i am just a speck of dust inside a giant’s eye

when i saw geneviève i really liked it when she said
what she said about the giant and the lemmings on the cliff
she said “i like giants- especially girl giants. ’cause all girls feel
too big sometimes, regardless of their size”

when i go for a drive i like to pull off to the side
of the road and run and jump into the ocean in my clothes
and i’m smaller than a poppyseed inside a great big bowl
and the ocean is a giant that can swallow me whole
so i swim for all salvation and i swim to save my soul
but my soul is just a whisper trapped inside a tornado
so i flip to my back and i float and i sing
i am grounded, i am humbled, i am one with everything
i am grounded, i am humbled, i am one with everything

so i talked to geneviève and almost cried when she said
that the giant on the cliff wished that she was dead
and the lemmings on the cliff wished that they were dead
so the giant told the lemmings why they ought to live instead
and when she thought up all those reasons that they ought to live instead
it made her reconsider all the sad thoughts in her head
so thank you geneviève, ’cause you take what is in your head
and you make things that are so beautiful and share them with your friends

we all become important when we realize our goal
should be to figure out our role within the context of the whole
and yeah, rock and roll is fun but if you ever hear someone
say you are huge look at the moon, look at the stars, look at the sun
look at the ocean and the desert and the mountains and the sky
and say i am just a speck of dust inside a giant’s eye
i am just a speck of dust inside a giant’s eye
i am just a speck of dust inside a giant’s eye
and i don’t wanna make her cry

’cause i like giants.

Remember these guys?

I took a trip down memory lane this weekend.

Yoav and the city

Went to see Yoav play at the Apple Store tonight. Très awesome. I was smitten. I love his album and he managed to sound (and look…) even better live. Especially from up close. In the bright lights of the store.


Yoav in Montreal from Martine on Vimeo.

The store is actually a cool venue for shows, even though we ended up sitting on the hard floor and I thought I’d never be able to get up again. Ouch. The show was free but we had to wait in line outside for about 40 minutes. The employees of the store handed us some show passes that were also gift cards to use at the iTunes store. As Ed would say, it’s better than a boot to the head. (Or, as I would say: it’s better than a boot to the ed.) Speaking of the blorkster, he took some pretty good shots that show how nicely situated we were.

Yoav was born in Israel and raised in South Africa, and he recorded part of his album in Montreal. He’s a one man band and every note of his album is played, teased, tapped and pounded out of his guitar. On this video, he demonstrates his technique from a rooftop in Montreal. His best known song is Club Thing and the video is a nice thing to look at, ladies. I know, I know. Sometimes, there’s a groupie hiding in me.

They told us we weren’t allowed to take pictures or film the performance, but since tons of people had their cameras out, we just got ours and captured the moment. If you like the excerpt of the song I filmed (above), check out the whole video here. He also covered Radiohead’s Idiotheque and it was pretty darn cool. I didn’t film that but hey, it’s on YouTube, so enjoy.

Stepping off the track

What’s tragic is never living one’s life: failing to be present to the moments as they pass, failing to see, failing to participate.

I haven’t always known this, and even now I know and live it imperfectly. I’m learning to live in the face of illness and troubles and aging and uncertainty, which means un-learning being depressed and self-absorbed about my own troubles, and realizing that life goes on in every moment, it is we who step off the track and feel like it’s going on without us, or convince ourselves that “life” belongs to other people, or a previous time never to be recaptured.

Take a 5 minute break right now and go read the whole post at Beth’s blog.

Vous êtes ici

Montréal, vue par Blork: